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Even then I couldn't see it and in any case, after that, all I wanted to do was hurt her. I moved to the door and said, 'Just one thing. How much do I owe you?'

She laughed in my face and I turned, utterly defeated, stumbled down the veranda steps and hurried away towards the river.

*

All right, so I didn't know much about women, but I hadn't deserved this. I wandered along the riverbank, a cigarette smouldering between my lips and finally found myself at the jetty.

There were several boats there, mainly canoes, but Figueiredo's official launch was tied up and another belonging to one of the big land company agents. The mission launch was at the far end, Sister Maria Teresa in the rear cockpit. I started to turn away, but it was already too late for she called to me by name and I had no choice, but to turn and walk down to the boat.

She smiled as I reached the rail. 'A beautiful morning, Mr Mallory.'

'For the moment.'

She nodded and said calmly, 'Would you have such a thing as a cigarette to spare?'

I was surprised and showed it I suppose as I produced a packet and offered her one. 'They're only local, I'm afraid. Black tobacco.'

She blew out smoke expertly and smiled. 'Don't you approve? Nuns are only human, you know, flesh and blood like anyone else.'

'I'm sure you are, Sister.' I started to turn away.

She said, 'I get the distinct impression that you do not approve of me, Mr Mallory. If I hadn't called out to you, you wouldn't have stopped to talk. Isn't that so?'

'All right,' I said. 'I think you're a silly, impractical woman who doesn't know what in the hell she's getting mixed up in.'

'I've spent seven years in South America as a medical missionary, Mr Mallory. Three of them in other parts of Northern brazil. This kind of country is not entirely unfamiliar to me.'

'Which only makes it worse. Your own experience ought to tell you that by coming here at all, you've only made a tricky situation even more difficult for everyone who comes into contact with you.'

'Well, it's certainly a point of view,' she said good-humouredly. 'I've been told that you have a great deal of experience with Indians. That you worked with Karl Buber on the Xingu.'

'I knew him.'

'A great and good man.'

'Who stopped being a missionary when he discovered you were doing the Indians as much harm as anyone else.'

She sighed. 'Yes, I would agree that the record has been far from perfect, even amongst the various religious organisations involved.'

'Far from perfect?' I was well into my stride now, my general anger and frustration at the morning's events finding a convenient channel. 'They don't need us, Sister, any of us. The best service we could offer them would be to go away and leave them alone and they certainly don't need your religion. They wear nothing worth speaking about, own nothing, wash themselves twice a day and help each other. Can your Christianity offer them more than that?'

'And kill each other,' she said. 'You forgot to mention that.'

'All right, so they look upon all outsiders as natural enemies. God alone knows, they're usually right.'

'They also kill the old,' she said. 'The disfigured, the mentally deficient. They kill for the sake of killing.'

I shook my head. 'No, you don't understand, do you? That's the really terrible thing. Death and life are one, part of existence itself in their terms. Waking, sleeping - it's all the same. How can it be bad to die, especially for a warrior? War is the purpose for which he lives.'

'I would take them love, Mr Mallory, is that such a bad thing?'

'What was it one of your greatest Jesuits said? The sword and the iron rod are the best kind of preaching.'

'A long, long time ago. As the times change so men change with them.' She stood up and straightened her belt. 'You accuse me of not really understanding and you may well have a point. Perhaps you could help me on the road to rehabilitation by showing me the sights of Landro.'

Defeated for the second time that morning, I resigned myself to my fate and took her hand to